By Rihaab Mowlana

They’ve been called homewreckers, temptresses, and worse. But the women we never hear from - the “other” women - are finally speaking up.

They didn’t come looking for drama. They weren’t plotting to steal husbands or wreck marriages. Yet the moment the affair begins - or sometimes, long after it ends - they become public enemy number one. Society has already decided who they are: selfish, immoral, predatory. But what if the truth is messier than that? What if the stories we’ve never asked to hear are the ones that might actually explain why this happens - again and again?

In this piece, three women - all once branded the other woman - speak candidly about what led them there, what it cost them, and what they want you to understand. Their names have been changed, but their stories are real, raw, and rarely heard.

“He never wore a ring” - Nush, 32

It started like most stories in Colombo do - through mutual friends and a night of too many drinks. Nush met Rukshan at an event. “He was smart. Articulate.”

They began texting, then dating. Dinners at fancy restaurants, Sunday walks at the park. He said he was divorced. “We even talked about starting something - a business, maybe even a future.” There were no red flags. No secret phone calls. “He didn’t treat me like a side piece. He made time for me. Introduced me to his friends. I honestly thought I was the only one.”

But one night, a stranger messaged her on Instagram. “It was from an anonymous account. Screenshots of wedding photos. A holiday in Bali. A baby shower post.”

At first, she thought it was a prank. Then she realized the dates overlapped with weekends they’d spent away from each other.

“I confronted him. He said it was complicated. That they were separated but still living together for the child’s sake. That I was overreacting.”

She left - blocked him, deleted the photos, cried for three days straight. But the aftermath was brutal.
“His wife went public. So did her sisters. My name was dragged through mud on WhatsApp groups I didn’t even know existed. At one point someone sent my mother screenshots and said, ‘Teach your daughter to stay away from married men.’”

Today, Nush avoids Colombo’s tight-knit art circles. “People remember me as that girl. Not him. Just me.”

“I knew he was married. And I stayed.” - Ashwini, 38

Ashwini doesn’t try to excuse herself. She owns it. “I walked into the fire with my eyes wide open.”
After a broken engagement and a string of failed dating app attempts, she wasn’t looking for love. “I was exhausted. Everyone wanted something - sex, status, convenience. I didn’t expect honesty from anyone.”

So when Prasanna, her married colleague, made his intentions clear, she didn’t flinch. “He didn’t lie. Said his marriage was dead. Said he slept in a separate room. We didn’t start with romance. It was comfort. Two lonely people filling a void.”

For over a year, they navigated a quiet affair. Lunches at his car, weekends at beach resorts in Negombo, burner accounts for messaging. “There was this illusion of safety. Like we had rules. Boundaries. But love doesn’t follow rules, does it?”

She started catching feelings. He didn’t leave his wife.

“I knew this wouldn’t end well. I knew I’d become the woman I used to judge.” She ended it one evening after a particularly cold message. “He said his kid had a school play and he couldn’t meet. I remember staring at that message and thinking, ‘What am I doing?’”

Ashwini hasn’t dated since. “People say mistresses ruin lives. But this ruined me too. I had to put myself back together. Quietly. Alone.”

“Being the secret was worse than being the mistake.”- Zoe, 29

When Zoe moved to Sri Lanka for a consultancy role, she was ready for adventure - beaches, new food, maybe even a tropical romance. She didn’t expect to become “the other woman” in someone else’s story.

Amal was a photographer. Married, with two kids. But according to him, the marriage was over - “in name only.” They met through a workshop. “He was magnetic. In that annoying, artsy, effortlessly cool way Sri Lankan creatives sometimes are.”

Zoe fell fast. “He made me playlists. Cooked me dinner. Spoke to me like I mattered.” For a while, it worked. He compartmentalized. She justified.

But slowly, the cracks showed. “I’d never met his friends. I wasn’t allowed to tag him in anything. He’d vanish for days and claim he was ‘at a shoot.’”

The worst part? “I knew I was the secret. And I hated that I tolerated it.”

When she finally ended it, he didn’t fight. “He said, ‘I get it.’ That was it. No closure. Just… silence.”
Zoe left Sri Lanka a few months later. “It wasn’t just him. It was how invisible I felt. Like I had to disappear so his life could stay intact.”

So Why Does This Keep Happening?

Affairs aren’t just about lust or deception. According to psychologists, they’re often rooted in emotional unmet needs - loneliness, abandonment, resentment, or even the thrill of validation. For the woman on the outside, it can start with a desire to feel seen, chosen, or simply not invisible - especially if she's dealing with her own emotional void.

“In many cases, the other woman is not operating from a place of power, but from a place of vulnerability,” explains a Colombo-based therapist. “It doesn’t make the choice right, but it does make it human.”

And while both parties are making choices, society often focuses its fury on the woman. Why? Because it fits a narrative we’ve been fed for generations - that women are responsible for keeping men moral, marriages sacred, and temptation at bay.

“We live in a culture where women are taught to carry the consequences of men’s actions,” the therapist adds. “So when something like this happens, the instinct is to police her, not question him.”
“However, we have to be careful not to romanticise these narratives. Pain doesn’t justify betrayal. Understanding why someone does something doesn’t erase the damage it causes.”

And while it’s easy to focus on the emotional complexity of the women involved, it’s important not to forget the emotional wreckage left behind - not just for the wives, but often for children, families, and even the women themselves. No one walks away from an affair unchanged.

Not a Defence. Just a Reality Check.

This isn’t about defending infidelity - it’s about unpacking the parts of it we rarely talk about: the silences, the double standards, and the roles we’ve all grown a little too comfortable assigning.
We’re not here to excuse anyone. Affairs are messy. People get hurt. That’s the truth.

But here’s the other truth: we love a woman to blame. It’s easier that way. Cleaner. Neater. We slap the label - homewrecker, side chick, the other woman - and move on. Meanwhile, the men? They go back to their families, their jobs, their lives. Untouched.

These women were part of something messy. Some walked in unknowingly. Others stayed when they shouldn’t have. But if we only ever see them as villains, we miss the full story.

Affairs don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen for all kinds of reasons - sometimes in fractured marriages, sometimes in moments of reckless impulse, and sometimes in situations where neither party fully understands the consequences. They can be emotional, physical, opportunistic, or even self-destructive. But across all of it, one thing tends to remain constant: men are often given the benefit of the doubt. Women, on the other hand, are left carrying the weight.

So no - this isn’t a love letter to the other woman.
It’s a mirror.
And maybe it’s time we looked into it.